Month: August 2011

KB Home ( KBH ) recently announced the opening of ten new energy-efficient communities under its Built to Order program, all located in and around the highly deman ding Bay Area of San Francisco. Six of the new communities are already on sale while the remaining four are scheduled in e arly autumn. A depressed housing industry is the biggest concern for any homebuilder including KB Home […]

The Mexican billionaire, Carlos Slim Helu, has recently increased his stake in one of the leading diversified media company, The New York Times Company ( NYT ) to 7.2% from 6.9%. On August 18, 2011, Carlos Slim bought 553,000 Class A shares of New York Times in the range of $6.83 to 7.09 per share. Mr. […]

Southern Union Company ( SUG ) received approval for the construction of the $235 million Red Bluff Project. The company’s midstream segment, Southern Union Gas Services (“SUGS”) will construct a natural gas processing plant with a capacity of 200 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) and associated gathering, compression and treating facilities. […]

China Life Insurance Co. Ltd. […]

Diversified energy company ONEOK Inc. ( OKE ) announced that it completed the buyback of its shares worth $300 million from Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays Plc. ( BCS ). […]

Kraft Foods Inc. ( KFT ) has cut down the prices of its flagship coffee brand Maxwell House by roughly 6% in the US, effective immediately, driven by a decline in the prices of coffee beans. […]

In an attempt to penetrate deeper into the annuities, yesterday The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. ( HIG ) announced the re-launch of its structured settlement fixed annuity. […]

The Board of leading cleaning and sanitation products company Ecolab Inc ( ECL ) has autho rized the buyback up to 10 million additional shares of its common stock. The Minnesota-based company had roughly 18 million shares remaining under its previous authorization. […]

We reiterate our Neutral recommendation on Federal Realty Investment Trust. ( FRT ) as we expect the stock to perform in line with the broader market. The company reported second quarter 2011 FFO (funds from operations) of $64.3 million or $1.02 per share compared with $60.3 million or 98 cents per share in the year-earlier quarter. […]

Russian mining company Mechel OAO ( MTL ) announced the launch of the new converter # 2 in Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant's oxygen-converter shop. Replacement of the converter #2 is the first stage in the complex reconstruction program for Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant's oxygen converter shop and is expected to be completed by 2013. […]